• African Traditional Leadership

    In this book, Emeritus Professor Jacob U. Gordon has brought together both historical and current literature in traditional African leadership to focus on critical issues of leadership and governance in Africa. The book sets out to provide students of African leadership and development, educators, politicians, traditional leaders and practitioners with a toolbox for understanding the changing role of traditional rulers/chiefs and its future in African life.

    It examples leadership dynamics of past African leaders such as Abu Bakr II (14th century), Chaka Zulu, Queen Hatshepsut, Hannibal of Carthage, Makeda the Queen of Sheba, King Mansa Musa, Haile Selassie and Yaa Asantewaa.

    It is the author’s hope that this book will help the reader to better understand the complexities of traditional leadership in Africa and key considerations; to appreciate the values of traditional African leadership; and to develop a better appreciation of the importance of good leadership and governance in a global and competitive world that yearns for sustainable peace and security.

  • The Trial of J.J. Rawlings: Echoes of the 31st December Revolution (2nd Edition)

    The Trial of JJ Rawlings narrates the extraordinary circumstances under which a young military officer Flt Lt JJ Rawlings, later to become the longest serving Head of State of Ghana, shot into the limelight to change the course of Ghana’s history and political development.The first edition of the book, originally published in 1986, completely sold out within a year, making this second edition very welcome in response to public request.

    This volume is a valuable contribution to our understanding of those ineluctable forces that have changed the contours of our society. Surely, the story of JJ, well told in this volume, cannot fail to grip and hold the reader’s most concentrated attention. – Prof F.A. Botchwey, PhD

  • It Takes A Woman: A Life Shaped by Heritage, Leadership and the Women Who Defined Hope

    It Takes a Woman retraces the early life of Agyeman‐Rawlings who rose to prominence as the First Lady of the Republic of Ghana (1982-2000). She redefined the privilege of serving a nation, and sought every platform to champion the causes of underserved citizenry and women. While her husband, former President Jerry John Rawlings, embarked on a relentless pursuit of transforming Ghana into a model of African democracy, Mrs. Agyeman-Rawlings founded the 31st December Women’s Movement (the 31st DWM), an organisation which played a pivotal role in the empowerment of women, and in addressing issues of systemic gender inequality, not only in Ghana but across the African region.

    Born in an era when women were overtly marginalised, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings’ strong relationship with her father, mother and family elders formed the core of much of her formative years. Fortified by her unique family history, she was raised to never accept the notion that there were some things she could not do, simply because she was a woman.”

    The narrative captures the family history of a spirited little girl, and as she walks us through the refreshingly detailed scenes from her childhood, we are transported to a hopeful and quintessential Ghana, where a sense of national pride resounded powerfully at the time of independence. But as she recalls Ghana’s struggles post-independence, we are also confronted face to face with her juxtaposed emotions of elation and frustration, hurt and joy, certainty and dread. She was not to know that her personal life being upended early one morning in 1979 would also become a turning point in the nation’s history and would thrust her into the glare of international publicity.

    It Takes a Woman, written with unflinching candour, is an absorbing portrait of a life devoted to public service and shaped by heritage. Above all, it is an account of resilience. The voices of the women who stood tall will forever inspire Agyeman-Rawlings to stand for many more whose voices may not be loud enough to stand on their own.

  • Dark Days in Ghana

    Kwame Nkrumah, foremost exponent of African unity and socialism, never saw Ghana in isolation from the rest of Africa or from the world revolutionary struggle.

    In Dark Days in Ghana, he exposed the true nature of the military-police dictatorship that was established after the overthrow of Ghana’s Constitutional Government on 24th February 1966, setting the event in the context of the wider continental and world situation.

    Dark Days in Ghana demolishes the “big lie” that Ghana had needed to be rescued from “economic chaos”. Nkrumah recounts the systematic sell-out of Ghana’s assets to neo-colonialist interests by the military-police junta, and the subsequent reduction of Ghana from democratic statehood to the humiliating position of neo-colony.

    Since this book was first published, Ghana has had several governments − military and civilian. None have succeeded in restoring Ghana to the position it occupied in Africa and the world during Nkrumah’s stewardship.

    This and other works of Nkrumah demonstrate the accuracy of Nkrumah’s political and philosophical vision, and the clarity of his understanding of the problems and possibilities for all those resisting oppression and exploitation throughout the world, and for the continuing development of continental African unity.

  • St. Augustine’s College: Conquering With Perseverance – Our Past, Our Present And Our Future

    The 724-page book is the first-ever reference book by any college in Ghana. It serves as both a history book on everything one needs to know about the St. Augustine’s College and serves as both an encyclopaedia as well as almanac that compiles in detail, every single one of the over 400 parishes, out-stations and individuals that contributed towards the establishment of the College. It also traces the history of the Gold Coast Catholic as the root of Catholic Education, contribution of the Catholic Church to Ghana’s Education Sector, the establishment of St. Augustine’s College initially as a Teacher Training College in Amisano and subsequent construction and transfer of the College to Cape Coast with a Secondary Department. In all the narration, the authors bring out the undercurrents that led to the clamour of the Gold Coast Catholic faithful to have their own Secondary School and the frustrations that the Catholic Church hierarchy had to endure to have the College established.

    The book gives a background to the naming of the College after the foremost Christian Theologian of African descent and how that dove-tailed into the philosophy, unique identity and character of the College’s products. Detailed highlights are given on major roles played by the Society of African Missions and the Congregation of Holy Cross in the holistic development of the College’s students. The College’s scholarship, excellence in sports and role as a citadel of the arts are well explained in the book with an impressive roll-call of outstanding alumni across various sectors as an emphasis to the role of the College within the context of national development. The very essence of campus life, management and curriculum is brought to the fore through reminiscence by APSUnians across its nine decades of existence. The various narrations are interlaced with interviews, discussions with College Management, academic staff and alumni dating as far back as the 1950s.

    The book also does a comprehensive listing of every college alumnus from 1933 when the very first graduates left college till 2017 by their programmes offered and provides 65 coloured pages of very historic privileged pictures some dating as far back as 1930s. The role of the past students’ union (APSU) as one of the most critical stakeholders in the development of the College is clearly established all through the book which closes with prospects on the establishment of an endowment fund to secure the gains made over the decades.

    Whether an APSUnian, Augusco parent, Catholic faithful, a historian or researcher, one will require a copy of this historic document to fully appreciate the work of the missionaries in the development of education in Ghana, role of the Catholic Church in the establishment of schools in Ghana among others.

    The book is printed on quality paper and stitched hard-bound with dust jacket.

  • Amu the African: A Study in Vision and Courage

    This book is an account of the life and work of Dr. Ephraim Amu, the renowned Ghanaian educationist and reformist — a great creative musician of world rank whose contributions are a cultural heritage for the world. It gives the story of Amu’s life and the contribution he has made to the development of the Church, Education, Morality, the Youth, Agriculture, Nutrition, Ghanaian Cultural Nationalism and, especially, the evolution of Ghanaian music.

    Not since Dr Kwegyir Aggrey has any other Ghanaian influenced more positively the development of Ghanaian culture and pride in the African Personality than Dr Ephraim Amu.

  • Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (African Writers Series)

    This anthology introduces the African literature of incarceration to the general reader, the scholar, the activist and the student. The visions and prison cries of the few African nationalists imprisoned by colonialists, who later became leaders of their independent dictatorships and in turn imprisoned their own writers and other radicals, are brought into sharper focus, thereby critically exposing the ironies of varied generations of the efforts of freedom fighters.

    Extracts of prose, poetry and plays are grouped into themes such as arrest, interrogation, torture, survival, release and truth and reconciliation.

    Contributors include: Kunle Ajibade, Obafemi Awolowo, Steve Biko, Breyten Breytenbach, Dennis Brutus, Nawal El Saadawi, M J Kariuki, Kenneth Kaunda, Caesarina Kona Makhoere, Nelson Mandela, Emma Mashinini, Felix Mnthali, Augustino Nato, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Kwame Nkrumah, Abe Sachs, Ken Saro Wiwa, Wole Soyinka, and Koigi wa Wamwere.

    Although an often harrowing indictment of the history, culture and politics of the African continent and the societies from which this literature comes, the anthology presents excellent prose, poetry and drama, which stands up in its own right as serious literature to be cherished, read and studied.

  • Selected Speeches of Kwame Nkrumah (Volume 2)

    The death of Kwame Nkrumah, first President of Ghana, demonstrated a great irony: a man so much maligned and rejected in life, should be so praised and loved in death. The force of his personality, his convictions in the face of powerful opposition, and his vision for Ghana and a pan-Africa, are evident in his speeches. The speeches in this second of five volumes are arranged chronologically.

  • Selected Speeches of Kwame Nkrumah (Volume 1)

    The death of Kwame Nkrumah, first President of Ghana, demonstrated a great irony: a man so much maligned and rejected in life, should be so praised and loved in death. The force of his personality, his convictions in the face of powerful opposition, and his vision for Ghana and a pan-Africa, are evident in his speeches. The forty-seven speeches in this first of five volumes are arranged chronologically, and were all made in the year 1960.

  • Africa in Search of Prosperity

    Africa is a major player in global economic engineering. It is also a great development partner, a vital player in the economies of Asian nations who are eager to explore long awaited market possibilities that it presents by forging alliances with hi-growth emerging economies in Africa.

    This new economic order is shifting the developmental narratives as Africa’s rich potential market has become more attractive with a population of nearly one billion.

    The author of this book is a long time transnational business executive. Although he indicates a level of despair at times, he is quite hopeful of Africa’s prospects. His lived experience as an economist and policy advisor to Presidents, is reflected in these essays that address developmental issues from the colonial economy with those of the new states.

    In this, the author uses the experience of Ghana as an example and a site for an analytical perspective. He examines and writes about the issues of natural resource exploration, the oil economy, human skills and also looks at the vital factors of education, religion and the attendant attitudes to development.

  • My First Coup d’Etat: Memories from the Lost Decades of Africa

    My First Coup D’Etat chronicles the coming-of-age of John Dramani Mahama (former President of Ghana) in Ghana during the dismal post-independence ‘lost decades’ of Africa. He was seven years old when rumours of a coup reached his boarding school in Accra. His father, a minister of state, was suddenly missing, then imprisoned for more than a year.

    My First Coup D’Etat offers a look at the country that has long been considered Africa’s success story. This is a one-of-a-kind book: Mahama’s is a rare literary voice from a political leader, and his stories work on many levels – as fables, as history, as cultural and political analysis, and, of course, as the memoir of a young man who, unbeknownst to him or anyone else, would grow up to be vice president of his nation. Though non-fiction, these are stories that rise above their specific settings and transport the reader – much like the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Nadine Gordimer – into a world all their own, one which straddles a time lost and explores the universal human emotions of love, fear, faith, despair, loss, longing, and hope despite all else.

    An important literary debut from the then Vice President of Ghana, a fable-like memoir that offers a shimmering microcosm of post-colonial Africa.

    ‘A much welcome work of immense relevance.’ ~ Chinua Achebe

  • Our Motherland – My Life

    Our Motherland – My Life chronicles the remarkable life of a true Ghanaian patriot who has been an active participant and observer in Ghanaian political transitions. His African cultural influences are undergirded by his deep spiritual belief in articulating the needs of Ghana and Africa as an influential communicator. His leadership legacy as a visionary will be remembered for generations to come as one of the best Ghanaian and Pan Africanist thinkers of his generation.

  • Unfinished Journey: The Life and Times of VCRAC Crabbe

    Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene, says this about the book:

    “The Life of Justice Crabbe has surely not been all rosy. He has suffered painfully from people who envied and misunderstood him. But through it all, he came out better, fearless and incurably optimistic. We learn from some of his painful experiences recounted in this book that misfortune is only a missed-fortune. We should always believe as individuals and as a nation that the best is yet to come! Clearly, part of his secret for aging so gracefully is being content with the lot that life grants him and not to carry any negative emotions in his body.”

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